Science Fair (7 page)

“Interesting,” said Toby. He started walking toward the Science Nook.

“What’re you doing?” said Micah.

“I’m gonna have a look,” said Toby.

“Niles is in there,” said Micah.

“I’m not afraid of Niles,” said Toby.

“Yes, you are,” said Tamara.

“Yes, I am,” said Toby. “But I’m gonna be stealthy.”

“We’l wait for you here,” said Micah.

“Stay away from the eggplants,” said Tamara.

Toby looked back, frowning.

“She’s serious,” said Micah.

Toby walked to the Science Nook entrance, glanced at the strange window display, took a breath, and stepped inside. He saw nobody. He looked around, checking out the boxes and the stuffed owl. He noted with interest the eggplant splatter on the wal s and ceiling, and the loose eggplants on the floor. Hearing voices, he moved to a door along the back wal ; it was open a crack. He put his ear close. A man was talking.

“…Some unusual items this year,” the man said. “For example, this…” There was a pause, and Toby heard paper rattling “…this item here, this is highly classified technology. Only certain government agencies are even supposed to know it exists.”

A boy’s voice—Toby recognized The Ferret—said, “How come you know it exists?”

“Because I’m smarter than the government,” said the man. “But the point is, al of your projects this year involve classified technology. Who gave you these plans?”

“We told you, we don’t know.” That was Haley Hess’s voice. “They just showed up, same as last year. But what do you care where they come from, as long as you get paid.”

“Just curious,” said the man. “But yes, as long as you pay my price, I don’t care. I’m just saying some of these components are hard to get.
Very
hard to get. There are countries in the world that would
love
to get their hands on this technology.”

The next voice belonged to Jason Niles. “Whatever it is, my dad can get it,” he said.

“My dad, too,” said another voice, which Toby recognized as Harmonee Prescott’s. “If I tel my mom I need it for my project, she’l
make
him get it.”

“So what’s the deal?” said Haley.

“A thousand apiece,” said the voice.

“A thousand?” said Jason. “That’s a rip-off!”

“Fine,” said the man. “Make your own project.”

Jason mumbled something that Toby couldn’t hear.

“Five hundred up front,” said the man. “Five hundred when you get the project. You supply the parts I need. I circled them on your project sheets. Understood?” There was more mumbling, and suddenly Toby realized that they were about to open the door. He had no time to get out of the store. He looked around frantical y and saw the stuffed owl. In three quick tiptoe steps he was around the cabinet, crouching behind it.

He peered over the top and watched as the ME kids walked past, back out into the mal . The Ferret said something; they al looked back and giggled.

Toby was about to leave when Sternabite, whom Toby recognized as the store owner, came out of the back room. Toby almost showed himself but decided not to; after what he’d just heard, he didn’t want this weird man to suspect he’d been listening. He decided to hold stil for the time being, hoping Sternabite would go into the back room again, so he could escape.

Instead, Sternabite went out the door and pul ed out a key ring. Toby’s stomach froze.

He’s closing up.

Sternabite walked over and pushed the middle button. Then he stepped outside, pul ed the door shut, and put his key in the lock. Toby half rose behind the owl, wanting to yel , but afraid of what the weird dude might do.

The door lock clicked. As it did, the store lights went out.

And then the stuffed owl started to move.

Toby dropped back to the floor. Instantly the owl’s head whipped around 180 degrees. Lying on his back on the floor, not breathing, Toby saw that the owl’s eyes were glowing bright red. Two rays of red light shot out, causing two dots to appear on the wal .

Lasers, thought Toby.

The two dots scanned slowly down the wal ; in a few seconds they would reach Toby. As quietly as he could, he felt around on the dark floor. His hand found something round and hard. An eggplant.

With the laser dots only inches away, Toby gripped the eggplant and, as quietly as he could, tossed it. It landed with a
thud
in the middle of the store.

Instantly, the owl spread its wings—to Toby, directly below, its wingspan looked gigantic. It flapped twice—Toby felt the air—and swooped off the perch. By the mal light filtering through the store window, Toby saw the owl pounce on the eggplant. There was an ugly wet
splat
. The owl stood there for a moment, and then, apparently satisfied that it had kil ed the eggplant, flapped its wings, took off, circled the room once, and returned to its perch.

Directly above Toby.

T
OBY LAY AS STILL AS POSSIBLE
, his eyes on the owl—or whatever it was—perched overhead. Toby could see its talons gripping the perch. They glinted in the light coming through the store window from the mal concourse. Made of metal—steel, it looked like—the talons were at least six inches long, ending in curled, sharpened points. Definitely not a standard-issue owl.

Its laser eyes tracked back and forth, scanning the store. Toby studied the pattern: the twin red dots started up on the ceiling, then swept down to the floor. They continued across the tile to a spot right in front of the owl, and then the owl’s head rotated slightly to the right as the beams flicked back up to the ceiling and the process started again. Each cycle was fast, taking only a second or two, ceiling to floor. In no time—less than a minute—the red dots would fal on him, and the owl would do to him what it had done to the eggplant: turn him into sauce.

His instinct was to run, but to where? The front door was locked. That left the door to the back of the store…but what if it, too, was locked?

He fought his growing panic. The dots were coming right for him. He’d have to try the back door. But the owl, when it moved, moved
fast
. If the door gave him any trouble, slowed him down at al , the owl would attack. Toby tried to remember what, if anything, he’d seen at the front of the store that he might use to defend himself.

An image flashed into his mind.

It would have to do.

Careful y, he groped out with his right hand, hoping desperately to find…
There!
Another eggplant. With the moving red dots now only inches away, he threw the eggplant as hard as he could toward the back door.

Before the eggplant hit the wal , the owl was already moving, its huge wings lifting it off the cabinet perch. At the same moment, Toby rol ed to his right, scrambled to his feet, and ran toward the store’s front window. Behind him he heard the ugly splat as the owl landed on the eggplant.

As Toby reached the window, he looked back: the owl was on the floor, eggplant goo seeping from between its glinting talons. Its head was aimed directly at Toby.

Toby looked down: two red dots were centered on his chest.

The owl flapped its wings.

Frantical y, Toby turned back to the window, looking for ...
There it was
. As he felt the rush of air behind him he grabbed the Hel o Kitty vanity and whirled, holding it in front of his face, mirror-side forward.

He staggered off balance as the owl’s right wing brushed against him—the thing was
powerful
—and he peered around the side of the vanity to see that the owl had veered sharply left, fol owing where the two red dots, now reflected by the vanity mirror, danced on the side of an old, dust-covered TV set.

The owl, talons raised in attack position, slammed into the TV, which in turn slammed into the wal , its tube exploding in a thousand shards of glass. Toby, stil holding his Hel o Kitty anti-owl vanity, ran to the back door. As he reached it, he heard the flap of wings and saw the owl—the thing was
indestructible
—swooping at him again. He lifted the mirror just in time to redirect the lasers and send the owl careening into the side wal with a crash so violent that it brought down ceiling tiles. Immediately, the owl turned, located Toby again, and flapped its huge wings.

Toby tried the doorknob. It was unlocked! He pushed the door open and slammed it shut just as the relentless owl slammed into it. Toby’s relief lasted for perhaps two seconds; then the owl, which clearly had not given up, slammed into the door again—this time so hard that the wooden door frame began to give. Toby heard the huge wings flapping as the owl went airborne, evidently preparing for another lunge.

Frantic to get out of there, Toby looked around. He was in a back office lined with shelves ful of tools and electrical components. A battered desk stood by the back wal , near the only source of light in the office.…

An exit sign.

Toby jumped as the owl, with another resounding
CRASH
, smashed into the door again; this time the door itself began to splinter as the points of the owl’s steel-sharp talons pierced it. Toby, trying not to think about those same talons piercing him, ran toward the exit sign. As he reached it, he spotted a sheet of paper on the desk. Handwritten at the top was the word “Hubble.” Beneath that was a list. Toby grabbed the paper and stuffed it into his pocket. He turned and slammed the panic bar on the door beneath the exit sign just as the owl burst through a hole in the office’s wooden door. Toby heard an alarm sound as he slammed the metal door. A second later, the owl thudded into it.

Toby found himself in a wide, windowless corridor lit by overhead tube lights—a service hal way behind al the stores. He ran down the corridor, dodging cardboard boxes stacked outside the back doors of the stores. A dozen yards ahead he saw another exit sign.

“HEY! STOP!” a deep voice shouted from behind him.

Toby kept running. He reached the exit door, blasted through it, and was out of there, running from the mal as fast as he could into the approaching night.

“I
NEED A THOUSAND DOLLARS,”
said Jason Niles. “For the science fair.”

Jason was eating dinner with his parents in their kitchen, which—in the style of Manor Estates homes—was the size of a vol eybal court. It had two restaurant-quality stoves and a state-of-the-art refrigerator with a touchscreen, Internet-connected computer in the door that you could use to plan meals, generate grocery lists, and do many other helpful things, if you knew how to use it, which nobody in the Niles family did. The Niles family rarely used any of their vast array of advanced kitchen technology. Tonight they were eating—from designer ceramic plates that cost $280 apiece—takeout Mexican food from Mister Burrito.

“A thousand dol ars?” said Jason’s dad, Carl Niles, looking up from his BlackBerry, which he took everywhere, including into the shower in a special waterproof case. “For the science fair?”

“Yeah,” said Jason. “That’s what the other kids are spending.”

“But a thousand dol ars?” said Carl.

“If that’s what he needs,” said Jason’s mother, Jeanette, “that’s what he needs.”

Carl Niles was an imposing, powerful man who had thousands of people working for him. He had no trouble disagreeing with generals, senators, even presidents. But he knew better than to disagree with Jeanette.

“Whatever,” he said, looking back down at his BlackBerry.

Very few people argued with Jeanette Niles. She was an attractive, petite blond woman with perfect teeth and blue eyes capable of producing a gaze so intense that people felt as though she was burning holes in their faces. Jeanette sometimes sold real estate—always Manor Estates homes—but mostly she was a mom, an extremely
involved
mom, a mom who made certain that her son Jason, like his brother, Taylor, before him, had every possible advantage in what Jeanette viewed as the fierce, relentless, and critical y important competition to always be ahead of al other children, and thus ahead in life.

Jeanette was very, very good at this competition. In elementary school, when Jason, along with the rest of his first-grade class, had to do a report on a country, Jeanette had chosen Switzerland. On the day the report was due, Jason had arrived at school wearing authentic Swiss lederhosen and carrying a 124-page, professional y printed report that Jeanette had been up al night assembling in an attractive leather binder. Some of the other involved moms had also produced high-quality reports, but nobody else had broken the 100-page barrier.